so does anyone know why my drive only works for like 30secs to 1 min and then stops and then starts again? This is on the corsair that you guys reccomended? Any thoughts?

Errr, on MY BMW, it works perfectly, 16G Corsair......

reads all subfolders. I dont do Playlists. But I can play songs

*on a side note for all veterans: CAN I LEAVE THE CORSAIR (FLASHDRIVE) PLUGGED INTO THE USB CONNECTOR IN THE BMW, WITHOUTH DRAINING THE BATTERY/BMW ? Once the power is off, the power is OFF right? If I leave the flash drive plugged in, will it turn on/suck power from the CORSAIR?

It is a 60GB USB powered hard drive with a rotational speed of 3400rpm. In Australia it costs about AUD$170, which compares well with the 32GB Corsair Voyager (AUD$370) ie: less than 1/4 of the cost per GB.

The Amazon link you gave for the Lacie HDD is the same one GeriFix linked from Lacie's official website. You can tell by the part number. I think that 5400 rpm spec on Lacie's website is a typo.

I hope it's a typo!! That is the correct link, but I'm sure when I posted it originally it stated 3600rpm. It is possible they have changed the disk inside (which, I think, is sourced from Seagate).

It is still possible that a 1.8" hard drive running at 5400rpm may not excede the power/voltage available from the USB port in the car. From most peoples experience though, the 2.5" drives that run at 5400rpm don't work. The BMW USB port lives in a strange backward world where slower is actually better

I hope it's a typo!! That is the correct link, but I'm sure when I posted it originally it stated 3600rpm. It is possible they have changed the disk inside (which, I think, is sourced from Seagate).

It is still possible that a 1.8" hard drive running at 5400rpm may not excede the power/voltage available from the USB port in the car. From most peoples experience though, the 2.5" drives that run at 5400rpm don't work. The BMW USB port lives in a strange backward world where slower is actually better

Yep, jm1234, that Amazon link is to the same disk that I have.

Amazon says 3600, your original post said 3400 so I wasn't sure if that was the real number or 5400 was or the Amazon figure. Sounds like 3600 is the correct one and that matches Amazon so thank you.

The larger drives spin at 5400. The only reason I would get them is because they are cheaper. It will be a few decades before I need more than 60GB so I'll get the 60GB drive and stop trying to be so cheap.

Do you ever have skipping issues with the drive? How about if you open and close the center console. That is the only concern I would have going this route rather than the flash drive route. The bigger drive means I don't have to down sample the music to make it fit and that's a huge plus to me but I would like to know if you've ever had skipping with the hard drive!

Amazon says 3600, your original post said 3400 so I wasn't sure if that was the real number or 5400 was or the Amazon figure. Sounds like 3600 is the correct one and that matches Amazon so thank you.

The larger drives spin at 5400. The only reason I would get them is because they are cheaper. It will be a few decades before I need more than 60GB so I'll get the 60GB drive and stop trying to be so cheap.

Do you ever have skipping issues with the drive? How about if you open and close the center console. That is the only concern I would have going this route rather than the flash drive route. The bigger drive means I don't have to down sample the music to make it fit and that's a huge plus to me but I would like to know if you've ever had skipping with the hard drive!

And thanks so much for helping.

Hoiw much is this drive? Seems like the 32Gb Corsair Voyager flash drive might be less hassle, and is certainly smaller. I've seen it for $130 recently after rebate.

Amazon says 3600, your original post said 3400 so I wasn't sure if that was the real number <snip>

That was probably also a typo on my part

Quote:

Originally Posted by jm1234

Do you ever have skipping issues with the drive? How about if you open and close the center console. That is the only concern I would have going this route rather than the flash drive route. The bigger drive means I don't have to down sample the music to make it fit and that's a huge plus to me but I would like to know if you've ever had skipping with the hard drive!

And thanks so much for helping.

I've had no problems with skipping ... and the center console arm rest has a cushioned close, so the drive doesn't really get much of a shake. The center console also has a ventilation outlet in it which can help keep the drive cool in summer.

Do you ever have skipping issues with the drive? How about if you open and close the center console. That is the only concern I would have going this route rather than the flash drive route. The bigger drive means I don't have to down sample the music to make it fit and that's a huge plus to me but I would like to know if you've ever had skipping with the hard drive!

I've had some "skipping" but not the type you are thinking. Perhaps once a week the first song or two played will periodically pause for a few seconds, play for a few, pause, etc. After a few minutes it plays normally. It is definitely not the HDD "skipping" since it doesn't need to be moving, vibrating, etc for this to happen. I think what it is is iDrive trying to re-index all the music on the drive while also trying to read the current song data off the drive. ALL of my music is WMA Lossless so file sizes are very large and the HDD therefore has to spew lots of data during song play. The HDD is probably so slow that it can't do both indexing and playing at the same time. Once it is done with this gyration it plays flawlessly regardless of temperature or roughness of the road

So, I got the Corsair in 8gb @ Frys today, but I'm having a small issue. I downloaded all the music onto it fine, and it sounds great, when it works...

Every once in a while the music just stops and the system kicks me out to the radio (or CD, whatever I was listening to previously). It works again once I un-plug and re-insert. Without un-plugging the AUX menu doesn't recognize the drive.

I figure it might be that the cable was a bit loose, but it does the same thing direct also. Anyone have an idea of whats going on?

I had the same issue but on a 16GB. I had to go back and remove all the ID tags, Album arts, and all other stuff. I just left the artist and title. This can be done through winamp but if you have a lot of songs then you may need another software to do it quicker. Mine works perfectly now, no skips.

Stick your USB drive into a port, start windows media player, goto settings (tools->options->burn->data discs->add a list of all burned files in this format) and change the default playlist type to .m3u (click OK), click on "library", select "create playlist" on the menu on the left, then just browse the folders on your USB drive and drag files into the "Drag items here" pane on windows media player. When you've finished click on "save playlist". The playlist will be saved to <user name>/Music/Playlists. Go there, find the playlist (make sure it has been saved as a .m3u file) you have created and copy it to the root directory of your USB drive. Done.

Thanks to GeriFix for the above insight.

I am trying to figure out how to make my playlist etc.

Do I put my CDs on my computer so I can sync with my USB drive? Do I have a home file of all my songs on my computer (download my CDs) and then put what I want on the portable?

-

I figured out how to select the bit rate to code my songs, I went with highest variable rate (not loss-less recording) but just below that.

I have a few CDs on my stick and I plugged it into my USB and my car 'sees' the songs but doesn't play. I wonder what I'm doing wrong.

Finally decided to go w/the Corsair Voyager 16gb. I figured it's going to take me awhile to fill it up since I currently have only 8 gb of music. Bought it at Fry's for same price after rebate ($45) as Newegg. I loaded 1.5 gb & no issues whatsoever. Keep in mind this is summertime...IN TEXAS HEAT & HUMIDITY!

I was using my wife's old 30gb iPod but got tired of the HD noise thanks to the D->A->D->A conversion as noted previously. I bought a 16 gb Corsair Survivor flash drive (same price after rebate as Voyager, cool metal case!) from Newegg. I still use iTunes to organize everything as I have a ton of music rated, etc. I found a little program called iTunesExport that will export playlists and copy the associated songs to a directory (or flash drive!) of choice. Since I have 30gb of music but only really listen to about 6gb or so of it (4 and 5 star rated) I have it copy only the My Top Rated playlist plus a few custom playlists. I had to go to Amazon and re-purchase some songs given the flash drive won't play protected AAC. It might be placebo effect but I feel the treble sounds are a bit less artificial now with only one conversion instead of 3. No HD noise either. The unexpected bonus was that the flash drive fits much easier into the armrest underside pocket, making that storage space a bit more useful. The car likes to report "Album Artist" rather than Artist in details so had to go edit that in iTunes; now I am trying to clear the car's cache as it still reports several songs that I fixed as "Various Artists" instead of the actual track name.

I was using my wife's old 30gb iPod but got tired of the HD noise thanks to the D->A->D->A conversion as noted previously. I bought a 16 gb Corsair Survivor flash drive (same price after rebate as Voyager, cool metal case!) from Newegg. I still use iTunes to organize everything as I have a ton of music rated, etc. I found a little program called iTunesExport that will export playlists and copy the associated songs to a directory (or flash drive!) of choice. Since I have 30gb of music but only really listen to about 6gb or so of it (4 and 5 star rated) I have it copy only the My Top Rated playlist plus a few custom playlists. I had to go to Amazon and re-purchase some songs given the flash drive won't play protected AAC. It might be placebo effect but I feel the treble sounds are a bit less artificial now with only one conversion instead of 3. No HD noise either. The unexpected bonus was that the flash drive fits much easier into the armrest underside pocket, making that storage space a bit more useful. The car likes to report "Album Artist" rather than Artist in details so had to go edit that in iTunes; now I am trying to clear the car's cache as it still reports several songs that I fixed as "Various Artists" instead of the actual track name.

I have a 2008 535xi on order, to delivered before the end of this month. I've been reading this and other forums to get an idea of the different flash drives & how they work, organize tunes, etc.

I've found a handy (free) app for Macs that lets's you see the itunes libraries and copy them just as you were browsing through the hard drive. This makes it easy to keep a playlist going/building in itunes and then just copying over that playlist of tracks very easily to the flash drive. If you're on a Mac, the program is called iTunesFS and very slick & straight forward. I'm sure there are others for the PC users.

Also, my main concern about using a flash drive or memory stick is the size of the stick. On the 5 series, the USB port is on the side (vertical) wall of the interior console. It's the front wall, towards the gear shifter. So plugging a stick into that port basically means the stick will protrude and block access to the rest of the storage box. Fine if you're using a USB cable or the ipod adapter to the ipod, but not so good for some of the sticks that are 2.5-3.5 inches long. So I found the following and will be ordering it today, just in time for my new car to arrive.

They're a little more expensive (not terrible), but appear to be MUCH smaller, solid metal, etc. I'm getting the silver Pico C, which is the smallest. And 8GB is enough for me. If I really need more than that, I can get a second one. Or, by that time, they may have a 16GB version.

Has anybody else seen/used one of these? Or has anybody found a smaller physical device with at least 8gb of storage?